Budget 2015: Full text of Ed Miliband’s response

Mr Deputy Speaker, never has the gap between the Chancellor’s rhetoric and the reality of people’s lives been greater than it was today.

This is a Budget people won’t believe from a government that’s not on their side.

Because of their record.

Because of their instincts.

Because of their plans for the future.

And because of a Budget, most extraordinarily, that had no mention of investment in our National Health Service and our vital public services.

It is a budget people won’t believe from a government they don’t trust and this chancellor has failed the working families of Britain.

For the first time since the 1920s people are earning less at the end of a government than they were at the beginning.

People are £1,600 a year worse off.

The next generation has seen wages plummet and tuition fees treble.

They’ve built fewer homes than at any time for nearly a hundred
years.

And it’s certainly not a truly national recovery when there are more zero hours contracts than the population of Glasgow, Leeds and Cardiff combined.